If you think that all your personality and you life can be comprised in a pile of papers, resumes and diplomas, then you are not worth the weight of those sheets.

Recognition is fine. Diplomas are fine. Only just remember that they are pieces of paper. Don't become trapped by routine, your job or the unavoidable daily dose of trivia.

The real spirit of any discipline, profession or career is not in performing 'as expected', but on being creative and doing something new. Artists have this trait ingrained in their minds; painters who become famous are those who invent something new, a new style, technique, motive or topic of work. Those who just learn the technique may become average painters; only those who are brave enough to get away from technicalities once the have learned them become great.

For example, we should never underestimate the value that represents knowing how to play a musical instrument. Indeed, not many musicians become superstars with their art, but the life as a musician is generally better than commonly thought.

Regarding art, the single, most important thing is to achieve expressive success; that is, for an artist it is important to be able to express him or herself; this alone makes a successful artistic career. But of course, artists have to live too, and for that they need money as anyone else; in this department, life seems to be unfair for them, but in most cases, in reality, these are just appearances.

Of course, some artists are bohemians, but those musicians that we often see in public transportation nodes and subway or underground stations in cities like Berlin, Warsaw or Paris, often make more money by being there than most people would think or care to believe. Indeed, not many fortunes are made, but profits of more than one hundred euros per day in such a way are not uncommon; in the end of the month this translates into a fairly healthy amount of cash.

We think that these are people in rags dreaming about riches who undertake a 'humiliating' task in order to fetch a few coins that will allow them to buy the same pack of rice every month, and it may have been so in the past, but now reality is a little different because most municipal authorities of cities where the travel industry has some significance have already understood that these artist play a vital role as part of the overall attractiveness of the town.

So, instead of just barely tolerating their presence, they are in many cases stimulating it, selecting good musicians and artists, and making sure that they can, in fact, live quite reasonably; this is why you can see some pretty good artists around the corners of many major cities.

So, no matter how mundane your profession is, you can still find a creative way to do your job and put your own signature on it. It is only a matter of choice.